Before She Knew Him(37)

“Where’d you put it?” Mira asked.

Matthew looked up at the ceiling, as though thinking, and said that he put it in the dumpster at Sussex Hall. “That was the day I brought back a bunch of old textbooks, and I just grabbed a few old things from here to get rid of as well. You don’t think I—”

“No, it just occurred to me that it’s something you might get questioned about. If Hen thinks the fencing trophy belonged to Dustin Miller, then the police could get a search warrant, and—”

“That won’t happen. I don’t think they’re going to trust anything she says at all. She’s done this sort of thing before.”

“I just feel so helpless. There she is, right next to us, and she can say anything she wants about us. It’s horrible. Maybe we should get some sort of restraining order.”

“It wouldn’t stop her from saying things.”

“No, I know. But maybe it would stop her from coming onto our property, from approaching us. I don’t know if it would help, but it couldn’t hurt.”

“Okay,” Matthew said. “Who knows, maybe they’ll just leave and things can go back to normal.”

“Let’s hope,” Mira said.

“Yes, let’s hope,” Matthew echoed, as he opened the refrigerator door to return the cream to its shelf.





Chapter 20




“You let him go?” Hen said, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

“He has an alibi.” The name of this detective was Shaheen, a woman somewhere in her thirties with thin lips and humorless eyes.

“I’m telling you, it was him,” Hen said. She’d gone over the details of the previous night at least seven times. She’d also given details about the night she followed Matthew back to the Owl’s Head, the night he’d been stalking his next victim. She’d decided to tell the truth about everything, even though she knew it made her seem slightly crazy.

“You’re one hundred percent sure it was him?”

“I am. We looked right at each other.”

“It was pretty dark out behind the bar. Other witnesses said it was hard to make anything out.”

“It was dark, but not dark enough that I couldn’t see his eyes. What other witnesses, by the way?”

“Not witnesses to the crime, but other people we’ve interviewed who were at the back of the bar last night. The other members of the C-Beams. Gillian Donovan.”

Hen had learned that Gillian Donovan was the girl in the tight dress, Scott Doyle’s girlfriend.

“There was moonlight,” Hen said.

The door to the conference room swung open. Hen had been interviewed in three different rooms. First, in an interrogation room with a camera filming her, then later in Detective Whitney’s office. He seemed to be the lead detective on the case, although he also seemed too old to still be working. He had very little hair on his head and a pure white goatee. In every conversation with Hen, she thought he seemed exhausted.

And now she was in a conference room that looked like it hadn’t been used for several months. Hen had peered into a mug that had been left on the wooden conference table and seen a black circle of petrified coffee covered with small white dots of mold.

“I’d like to change the subject, briefly, Mrs. Mazur, and ask you about something else.”

“Okay,” she said.

“What can you tell me about your freshman year at Camden College?”

Hen wasn’t surprised to hear the question—she’d been expecting it—but the words still made her feel like she’d been punched in the chest.

“You’re referring to my being arrested for assault?”

“Yes.”

“I’m bipolar, and I had my first manic episode my freshman year at Camden College. I was not myself.”

“But you accused a fellow student of attempted murder, didn’t you?”

“I did, yes.”

“And then you attacked that student yourself?”

“Like I said, I wasn’t well at the time. That incident has absolutely nothing to do with what’s happening now.”

“But . . . you still are bipolar, yes?”

Hen told herself to make sure her words were calm and measured. “I am—I always will be—but my meds are working. I’m not having a manic episode. I’m not imagining anything about Matthew Dolamore.”

The detective put her hand flat on the table, about an inch from where Hen’s hand was. “I believe you, Mrs. Mazur, but I also need to look at every possibility.”

“I get it. But it’s different this time. It’s entirely different.”

“But if you were experiencing an episode of bipolar psychosis right now, you wouldn’t necessarily know it,” the detective said, leaning back a little in her chair. “That’s one of the hallmarks of being divorced from reality, right?”

Hen thought that the detective had either done some research right before engaging in this conversation or had some personal experience with someone with mental illness.

“Sure,” Hen said, and decided to not say anything else. She was aware that the more she protested, the worse it sounded.

They sat in silence for a moment, and then Detective Shaheen stood up. “Thank you, Mrs. Mazur,” she said. “Your husband’s here, by the way.”